More or less a step up. One is a competition among states, the other, among zones, with each zone comprised of five (or six) states. Ideally, a zonal selection has the best among the states within the zone.

Originally Posted by GingerFurball

Also, if the Ranji trophy is a state trophy, how many teams are there?

There are 27 teams, of which 25 are state teams, with the other two being Railways and Services. Relatively new states are not represented.

"Talent is nothing without opportunity"
"You're not remembered for aiming at the target, but hitting it"

Roger Binny has been appointed as coach of Bengal for one year. IT's a good development, though it had to do with his predecessor's stressful relationship with the CAB. Binny worked with the U-19 team that won the WorlD Cup, so it's not a bad choice. His biggest challenge will be maintaining a top fitness level for the team, as Bengal don't have too many players who are very athletic or physically fit- they seem to be a very old-school team.

There will be a meeting on the Corporate Trophy a little later this month. What will it be like? If it's another T20, then it won't work at all. The best we expect is an IPL-style tournament for 50-over cricket, but there is a catch. This is a corporate tournament, so there may be excessive attempts at brand promotion rather than developing cricket.

Two coaching updates- Manoj Prabhakar has been appointed coach of Rajasthan. Not the prolific IPL team, but the pushover Ranji/Hazare State team without all those foreign/guest players. The IPL Rajasthan team's victory didn't carry on to this team, as they could not win a single match and were relegated to Plate league.

In bigger news, Wasim Akram was approached to coach Delhi. He was chosen over Jonty Rhodes because of his all-round ability, while Jonty was more of a specialist, though the choice was more about pay package. The downside, if any, is that he won't be available as a full-time coach.

In other news, Bhupinder Singh was appointed coach of Punjab. That's not big news, but looking at Punjab (Ranji) vs Punjab (IPL), there is a big difference. The franchise owners bought out enough reserve Indian players to make it look like India A, but Punjab's only representation, apart from Yuvraj, was in VRV Singh and occasionally Gagandeep. Punjab players elsewhere were Harbhajan for Mumbai and Gony for Chennai, and Harbhajan did a lot better. Not surprisingly, their team didn't do too well last season. The ICL impact was also quite big, but that's been long ago, and they're slowly getting back to top shape.

Karnataka may have its own T20 league, the Karnataka Premier League (KPL). Anil Kumble is not pleased, for a good reason- there's not much to gain from what is essentially a whole lot of Karnataka clubs playing in the league. The proliferation of T20 low down isn't a good idea, as it will result in bad habits developing in young players at a very early age.

There is still a little buzz about the Corporate Trophy. Twelve teams have been finalised, and it's a week-long event. More here. Parthiv Patel, it seems, has been told by employers Reliance to play for them here. The condition is that each team should have four FC players and all players on the company payrolls.

An article on the Corporate Trophy on Cricinfo. Interesting, that Air India can field two teams when they're not doing too well in the terminals. Maybe they're in it for the money, and are trying very hard for it.

In other news, Sreesanth is headed for Warwickshire, and may play seven games. This will help him a lot, although we are not sure if they're willing to give him a game.

An article on the Corporate Trophy on Cricinfo. Interesting, that Air India can field two teams when they're not doing too well in the terminals. Maybe they're in it for the money, and are trying very hard for it.

In other news, Sreesanth is headed for Warwickshire, and may play seven games. This will help him a lot, although we are not sure if they're willing to give him a game.

If they are not willing, why should they sign him up in the first place?

Another Corporate Trophy input- Yusuf Pathan and Ravi Jadeja join Parthiv Patel in Reliance Industries Limited. We also have Rohit Sharma for Indian Oil Corporation, Yuvraj and Dhoni for Air India, Sehwag, Dravid, Kaif and Powar fo ONGC. Some interesting entries exist there, such as the Department of Taxes, apart from the two Air India teams.

The Karnataka Premier League franchises have fetched Rs 35 crores. Kumble and Srinath don't see anything good in this model. They think, too much money at an early age can have a negative effect on these youngsters. Moreover, a more valid point, is that T20 should not be allowed to get into the grassroots level, as it will misguide the players a lot.

The New Zealand A team will be coming to India for the Buchi Babu tournament. It is a tournament for state teams, with an overseas team invited. The matches run two days, ninety overs a day. Shane Bond, it seems, is coming back with them this year- he was there last year as well.

Just an enquiry about Siddharth Trivedi. How far away is he from the International scene?Solid enough stats.

He's got reasonably good stats, but doesn't have too much beyond it. Gagandeep Singh has an average a shade over 20 with over 250 wickets. Munaf Patel bowls fast, or apparently he can, but has slowed down. RP Singh is young and a very good fielder, though Trivedi's fielding isn't too bad. Nehra was an international regular, so he's more experienced. Irfan Pathan and Praveen Kumar are slightly ahead, but both are also (reserve) internationals and have a batting advantage. Sreesanth is a lot faster.

To sum this up, there are others who have something to get ahead of him. Trivedi has a lot of A-team and reserve experience, so he isn't too far behind. He'd make a place for himself if he can improve his fielding to the level of, say, Rohit Sharma. Fast bowlers who field well are not available in plenty lately, and they're often prone to bad fielding spells.

Now, Sehwag is so miffed with the nepotism and corruption in the Delhi District Cricket Association, he even wants to quit Delhi over the matter. He's fuming over the clout of the DDCA Sports Committee in the selection of teams at different levels. We thought those days were gone after NDTV repeatedly dug it up, and showed up DDCA in 2004 for the badly run association that it was. We thought things were getting better with their Ranji Triumph in 2008. It doesn't seem so. Moreover, one of the officials downplaying Sehwag's comments is Vinod Tihara. His son, Vartik Tihara, was in the probables, and may even have made the squad, for Delhi's Ranji team.

One solution, however, is disturbing. Sehwag seems to be headed to Haryana. A few years ago, Sehwag and Akash Chopra thought of shifting to Haryana because of the corruption that existed then. They stayed on, and it wasn't too bad for Delhi, as they got better. If they head for Haryana, it's not a good thing at all. They're a badly-run association, fielding a weak team. That's too weak even for these two to rescue. Their selectors are even worse than Delhi's- they often don't reward performance, and instead pick unsuitable players in the team for flimsy reasons. First, they got rid of Ajay Ratra, citing dubious reasons, and since, more such selection bloopers, as also a very flimsy top-six, were their undoing as they were relegated to Plate and were stuck there. Now they have lost more than a few players (Ratra shifted to Goa), while Delhi has been more or less intact.